Graphics

brianshapiro it's nice to read your critique as it's well argumented and not just "Civ is dead! This will have microtransactions mark my word!" like in reddit's civ page. :)

Personally I like the features of VI and after over 2000 hours of Civ V and who knows how many of Civ IV I need something fresh. And of course you have the right to be wary.
 
For those who think the Civ VI graphics look reminiscent of Civ Revolution graphics, it's not your imagination:

Civ VI Art Director Brian Busatti
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbusatti

"My published games include:

Civilization 5: Brave New World - 2013 (Lead Modeler, Leader and Leader Environments)
Civilization 5: Gods and Kings - 2012 (Lead Modeler, Leader and Leader Environments)
Civilization 5 - 2010 (Lead Modeler, Leader and Leader Environments)
Civilization Revolution - 2008 (Project Art Director)
Civilization 4 - 2005 (Lead Modeler)
Sid Meier's Pirates - PC and Xbox - 2004, 2005 (Lead Modeler)
Rise of Nations - 2003 (Lead UI and Environment Artist)
Warhammer 40,000 Rites of War - 1999
Sanitarium - 1998
War Wind II - 1997
War Wind - 1996
Anvil of Dawn - 1995
Chronomaster - 1995"
 
The colors are a little bright for my taste, but otherwise I really like the new art direction. I don't think it looks "cartoony" at all, simply stylized. Combined with the fact that we get ethnically-distinct units and the paper map fog of war (which I look forward to seeing screenshots of), I'm quite pleased.
 
My only issue right now is that some colours are really bright and hurt my eyes, other than that I see nothing else but improvements.

If I can easily identify things and distinguish between them without taking a lot of time then they did it right, graphics in Civ are just a way to give the player more info quick and effectively, by making them more simple they achieve just that.
 
If I can easily identify things and distinguish between them without taking a lot of time then they did it right, graphics in Civ are just a way to give the player more info quick and effectively, by making them more simple they achieve just that.

Yea, I don't really think that's even a plus, though. The style is very "loud", high contrast. So I look at a screenshot and a I see a lot of noise. The graphics scream at you. Part of it is the bright colors, bit its also the crisp, high contrast detail. So I don't see the utility.

In the Civ 5 graphics, my eyes could at least relax, even if the colors were closer to each other, and I never had a problem distinguishing anything with my eyes. I really liked the icon overlays, too, not just for the utility, but also the style.
 
It could look a bit better, but looks good enough :)
 
All I can say about the graphics is that many 2015 mobile android games look better than this. Some people will take anything. They would defend anything just for the sake of defending it. As if an AAA strategy game in 2016 was supposed to look like crap because of the gameplay. If I want the gameplay, I can play Civ 1, 3, 4, 5. I don't need to hurt my eyes in Civ 6.

I truly enjoy Civ 1 (1991) artstyle more than this blocky, pale, blurry, caricature like graphics in 2016. This game deserves to be called Civ Rev. II*; definately not CIVILIZATION VI; I will not buy it because the childlike graphics with no details looks disgusting (BTW, the franchise is 25 years old, so how old are many of the fans?).

Unfortunately, Firaxis target new audience seems to be a new generation of kids. This is sad. Look at Paradox games. They make complex strategy games that do not look like cartoons. They look beautiful and have a lot more serious tone.

Spoiler :
*Civ Rev. III, II is already a thing.


But other than that, this is very well stated and I wholeheartedly agree.
 
I pretty much agree with this. They should have made a more realistic look. This is Civ Revolution nonsense.

Having the news break while at work, I saw the screens on my 6 inch mobile screen and my initial impression was not good.

I settled on being 'ambivalent' since then, but having found links to the full-res screens, I can tell you they look nothing like mobile games or CivRev. Maybe only in passing, if you're squinting. Besides, CivRev2 looks more like Civ4 than it does this game.

full-res screens below (via IGN)

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2016/05/CivilizationVI_screenshot_announce21.jpg


http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2016/05/CivilizationVI_screenshot_announce11.jpg

http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2016/05/CivilizationVI_screenshot_announce31.jpg
 
I am not really a fan of the artwork but it think they could bypass much of the cartoony graphics sentiment (which I agree with) by reworking the trees:

Add more detail
Add more variety
And most important - make the forests properly dense.

Same would apply for jungle. Players should feel they need to tame the landscape. Massive dense forests should dominate much of the temperate landmass early game.
 
I am not really a fan of the artwork but it think they could bypass much of the cartoony graphics sentiment (which I agree with) by reworking the trees:

Add more detail
Add more variety
And most important - make the forests properly dense.

Same would apply for jungle. Players should feel they need to tame the landscape. Massive dense forests should dominate much of the temperate landmass early game.
I whole-heartedly agree with this. The trees are a really big issue with the current look. That, and the techni-colors. If those two things are addressed, it will be a major step forward.

Thanx for linking to the HR-screens btw. Dexters, I did not see those before.
 
I am not really a fan of the artwork but it think they could bypass much of the cartoony graphics sentiment (which I agree with) by reworking the trees:

Add more detail
Add more variety
And most important - make the forests properly dense.

Same would apply for jungle. Players should feel they need to tame the landscape. Massive dense forests should dominate much of the temperate landmass early game.

I think they made the trees like that with the idea that they're representations of a forest; I've seen other designers do similar things. But seriously, it doesn't work. It just doesn't feel right.

But I'd say the same thing about the districts which have buildings spread out so they no longer look like dense city areas, but just a couple of buildings on a map. And the color-coding doesn't help, either.

Also the fact that the units are large. I think that's something Civ 5 did right.

While you can't expect map proportions to be realistic, I think there's a point where there's some suspension of disbelief, and another point in which everything sticks out and looks funny.
 
"Also the fact that the units are large. I think that's something Civ 5 did right."

As I mentioned before, I disagree with this one. In Civ 5, the units were too small to easily differentiate between other units without the silhouette icons attached. Realism is nice, but not if it interferes with gameplay.
 
"Also the fact that the units are large. I think that's something Civ 5 did right."

As I mentioned before, I disagree with this one. In Civ 5, the units were too small to easily differentiate between other units without the silhouette icons attached. Realism is nice, but not if it interferes with gameplay.

I didn't find that true... but I liked the overlay icons anyway. I hope they're there in Civ 6, even with the new style. Besides the fact that I like them artistically, I also think we're going to have problems with the Civ 6 style. High contrast maps aren't easy to distinguish things on.
 
I find the graphics in general to be very poor. I admit that when I look at them with the filters applied and the colour saturation taken out they look a little better.

But what bugs me most is not the ridiculous colour saturation but the disneyfied architecture. The farm houses for heaven's sake! They're like something out of the smurf cartoons my kids watch. I admit that some of the soldiers and the animals do indeed look like models based on real-life humans and creatures. The horses aren't so bad. The horsemen too. They have the correct proportions. They're not cartoonised for effect. But the architecture? the architecture is just execrable.

The damned pyramids. When you build the pyramids wonder -you don't build a generic Disney Pyramid from Las Vegas or Aladin - you build the actual damn pyramids. The ones in Egypt. They have NEVER ever had Disney porticoes or whatever the damned porch thing is supposed to be. I'm not being some kind of snob about this - the Wonder is called the Pyramids. So I'd expect it to look like they actually look. Not look the way a Disney artist or Las Vegas casino tells you it looks.

Same with the Collosus. The wonder is called the Collosus. NOT generic bronze statue by the sea! True, we don't actually know exactly how it looked. We know it was built from bronze and we know it's supposed to have straddled the entrance to the port of Rhodes. But the word straddle is key here. Straddle can mean a number of things -but it definitely DOES NOT mean standing on an island. I'm not normally a history snob - but I just don't understand how they can turn their backs on the facts concerning the actual Wonders of the World - yet shout about how the game is all about them and civilisation.

God help us with the rest of the wonders.

the Eiffel Tower, perspective exaggerated so the base is wide, the waist narrow and the top larger than life - to make it goofy for the kids. And don't forget the 2 stripe shirted men with onions round their neck, standing next to it.

Stone Henge - obviously this requires four or five circles of Super large stones - no broken stones - nothing fallen on the ground - everything like brand new because, hey, the real Henge is kind of dull for kids to look at - it could even be shaped like a castle. That'd be cool - something our orcs from our orc mine can defend!

The Great Library - libraries contain books, books are dull - cut the library

The Hanging Gardens - let's make those gardens truly hang! Terracing is for dopes - we need really big pots of plants hanging from giant plant statues with walkways for kids to run between them! Cool! Hey, maybe we can make them need a jungle tile to be built - and we can hang them from vines with Tarzan and Cheetah. Where the heck was Babylon anyway?

Macchu Pichu - yeah well that town is just rubble and ruin. Who the heck builds a ruined town? The mountain looks cute though. Why don't we just skip the town and keep the mountain - with the jungle. Hey maybe our hangign garden can be part of it.

NOtre Damme -ahh more French guys with onions, magnificent! And hey, lets go the full disney on this one and get a cute mouse who wants to be a chef waving from one of the towers -dammit, who needs gargoyles. lets just use mice.

The Leaning Tower- What angle is that supposed to be at anyhow? And what the heck is RomanesK? Roman queue? Whatever, it's dull. Let's make it more spikey with some of those notre damme gargoyles! Hey, maybe even like that Tower from Mordor - so what if it's fiction - they've all seen the film. Lets do that, a nice leaning Mordor Tower - it'd work really well with our orc mines and Smurf cottages - Goddam, I think we're really getting the hang of this civ 6 aestethic! I was a little worried at the beginning but now I can see how cute and Disney can really give us a mean brand theme. Disney rocks!
 
The damned pyramids. When you build the pyramids wonder -you don't build a generic Disney Pyramid from Las Vegas or Aladin - you build the actual damn pyramids. The ones in Egypt. They have NEVER ever had Disney porticoes or whatever the damned porch thing is supposed to be. I'm not being some kind of snob about this - the Wonder is called the Pyramids. So I'd expect it to look like they actually look. Not look the way a Disney artist or Las Vegas casino tells you it looks.

Same with the Collosus. The wonder is called the Collosus. NOT generic bronze statue by the sea! True, we don't actually know exactly how it looked. We know it was built from bronze and we know it's supposed to have straddled the entrance to the port of Rhodes. But the word straddle is key here. Straddle can mean a number of things -but it definitely DOES NOT mean standing on an island. I'm not normally a history snob - but I just don't understand how they can turn their backs on the facts concerning the actual Wonders of the World - yet shout about how the game is all about them and civilisation.
I disagree with this. The entrance part to the Pyramids is taken straight out of the Luxor temples, so while the Pyramids might not actually have had such entrance parts (and then again, they might have), I don't mind this.

About the Colossus ... like you said, we don't know how the Colossus actually looked. Yes, some sources talk about it straddling the entrance part of the harbor, and that would have been nice, but with the new tile system placement, that just doesn't seem to be an option.
 
@Greasy Dave. I think you missed something, let's make the hanging garden hang from sky hooks, that would be best. Oh and it was a long time ago so let's use now extinct plants from the pre-Cambrian era.

But yea, it a looks so Disney it's sad. The graphics are an important part of the game for many of us. I keep thinking of model railroads, if "graphics" weren't important than people would just set up complex track systems to run trains on and not bother with adding scenery etc. designed to look as real as possible. Most of us are visual and if you make something look like a child's toy you are going to tend to think of it that way.

I'd like to see more of course, maybe the shots they provided were stylized a bit by the art department to create buzz about the game and in actual play things will be fine...but I doubt it.
 
I am loving the art style and graphics as a counterweight to sometimes very serious decisions that I have to make in game. I also prefer the cartoony rendition as it is easier to detect outlines of strategic elements on the map.
 
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